2
Gendry's arm ached as he woke up. He was used to it; it usually did. That didn't prevent him from swearing as he lifted it gingerly with the rest of his body and shook it viciously until the pain disappeared. Perhaps not the most appropriate of medical techniques, but the flaming agony in his elbow dulled to an annoying throb, and at least he could deal with the throb.
Another day.
He climbed out of his bed and entered the bedroom of his two-room apartment. The image in his mirror was the same as always and unbecoming. He figured he should get a haircut soon, but he couldn't afford it and always ended up botching it when he did it himself. A shave was in order, as well, but who was he trying to impress? Might as well just shower and let bygones be bygones, he supposed. He was due at work in a half hour, and it wasn't like improving his appearance—or attempting to do so—would improve his mood.
Breakfast was toast. Dry. The bread was expired, nearly moldy, and staler than a desert in Hell, but he ate it anyway, gulping down three glasses of tap water to wash away the horrible taste. He checked his pockets and wallet and was relieved to find he had at least fifteen dollars on him, which would get him an acceptable, if not lavish, lunch.
His apartment complex was nearly as small as his apartment, with rent he could hardly manage on a good week. Gendry managed to sneak out without waking his murderous landlord and unchained his bike from the railing outside. It was a ten-minute ride to work—it would be three if he owned a car, but that was about two thousand dollars past his life's savings.
Is it ironic, he wondered in his head, as he hopped on the bike and started to peddle down the scarred, bleak street of residences, that I work on cars all day but can't afford my own... or is just sad?
He couldn't answer that, not while riding down the streets as he dove farther into King's Landing, from the outskirts to the industrial sector. Not while pulling up into Tobho Mott's Car Shop and dumping his bicycle on the scrap pile that no one ever touched. Not while skirting through the back door, punching in his time slot and stalking into the main shop. Not while glancing at the crude roster report Mott drew up every evening and morning detailing what had to be done.
Smelling blood, Mott slid out from under a nearby car and eyed his only employee. "You're late."
Gendry glanced at the crude clock on the wall and noticed that he was, in fact, seven minutes early. Keeping his grumblings to himself, aloud he said, "Sorry, boss. Won't happen again."
"You've got spark plugs to replace," Mott said, jerking one of his feet towards a nice black truck sitting in a corner of the shop as he slid back to his work. His muffled voice added, with a jerk of the other foot in the opposite direction, "And two catalytic converters to do over there."
"On it, boss," Gendry said dully, and set off to do his work.
So went his day. So went every day for him, actually. Unfortunately for him, it was Friday, good and bad. Good because it meant he had two days in which to not be exposed to Mott's constant criticism despite his respectable experience, two days in which to travel downtown and hopefully play ball in a more challenging setting than the construction site he usually attended on his lunch break. With any luck and a decent amount of risk, he may even have been able to make some money betting on the outcomes. He'd never gone downtown before; most of the time he preferred to play it safe and quiet. This week, though, he figured he might as well test his luck.
Friday was bad because the construction site moved southside of the city on Fridays, meaning his lunch break would be woefully devoid of baseball today and there was no hope of a game tonight. He hated nights where he had nothing to do. It meant he would probably do something stupid like pick up a girl.
Which would result in money that he didn't have being spent. By him.
The lack of baseball meant his day dragged, despite the quickness of his work. His ability to operate mindlessly was convenient in a number of ways. For one, it didn't have the cruel effects that schoolwork had always had on him when he was younger, making him stumble over situations and facts because he couldn't concentrate. For another, he could let his mind wander anywhere it wanted without having to return unless something seriously complex was screwed up with the car.
Most days, Gendry's mind either wandered towards baseball or girls. Mostly baseball, because that was his life, and because his luck with girls was notoriously poor. On Fridays, however, with his days dragging and his future looking dismal, bleak, and unyielding, he had no desire for his mind to wander at all. There was nothing but work, work, work.
After three centuries of replacing transmissions and swearing at spark plugs, Mott kicked his foot from where he was under an engine to get his attention. "Waters, I gotta head to a doctor's appointment. It's almost four. Can you wait after 'til six for me? I'll pay you overtime and everything."
Working an extra two hours wasn't exactly Gendry's idea of how to spend his Friday night, but then again, it wasn't like he had any better plans. "Sure. I'll just close up when I leave at six, then."
"Thanks, boy," Mott said, the tap on the foot light and friendly this time as he stalked off through his shop. Gendry lied on his back for a few minutes, listening to his boss peddle around in the back room. Only after he heard the back door shut and lock behind Mott did he reach up and continue his fiddling.
He didn't mind Mott. Most of the time. He was usually a fair boss, if grumpy and hard-to-please. Gendry had worked for him for nearly five years, and he still put up with the bull-headed adult he had turned into. Gendry couldn't quite say he was grateful of his boss, but at least they could usually fix cars within twenty feet of one another for eight hours a day without ripping each others' throats out. Which was more than he could say for the garage where he'd worked in high school. What was that kid's name? Lemmy? Lommy?
The car he was working on was done by four-thirty, and he finished up the suspension on a fancy yellow sports vehicle by five-thirty. He was so bored by six that he was reciting Jaime Lannister's hit totals per season and was relieved when the clock in the pack chimed the closing time alarm he so rarely stuck around for.
The only thing that could have deadened his mood was the chiming of the door at the opposite end of the shop, precisely as he finished putting his and Mott's tools away.
Gendry leaned himself against the counter and sighed. After considering toughing his boredom out through one more customer, he cleared his throat and announced, "Sorry. We're closed. You'll have to come back on Monday."
"I'm not here for a fix," a woman's voice replied. "I'm here to pick up a car. It was supposed to be done by today."
"After hours," Gendry answered. "And I'm not the owner. Technically, I'm not allowed to check out customers without him being here. Sorry."
There was a scoff near the door. "Come on. I'm right here, I just want to pay, take my car, and leave."
Gendry scratched the back of his neck, stretching his taxed back muscles as he did so. All I want to do is go chuck a baseball. He hadn't lied; Mott didn't trust anyone with his inventory, and the last time Gendry had let a soccer mom check her minivan out while Mott was on lunch break he'd nearly been docked a week's pay plus having to clean and sweep the shop.
"Look," he said, turning around. "I'd love to—"
He stopped. He had expected to find a sixteen-year-old girl chewing bubble gum and texting impulsively; that was the read he had made on the voice to his back. What he had not expected was to find a girl who may have stood up to his shoulder on her tiptoes who appeared ready to punch him in the face, not very much but obviously older than sixteen. She was wearing shorts and a blank black t-shirt, her scraggly brown hair falling messily to her shoulders. Startling grey eyes glared at him as he sized her up, and were he any smaller than he actually was he may have been genuinely taken aback by this little ball of fire.
The surprise for him came when she started, as well, as soon as he turned to face her. She tried to cover her shock quickly, but wasn't able to, and in the space of the moment, Gendry was struck by the feeling that he'd seen her before, and quite recently.
Despite her regained composure, he recovered first. "Sorry, I'd like to help, but I don't want to lose this job. I really need it." Perhaps slightly overdramatized—he would probably have to burn half the shop to the ground before Mott fired him—but he hadn't lied one bit about needing the job.
"Your boss won't care," the girl replied after a moment. "The car's supposed to be done and paid for anyway. I'm just supposed to pick it up. It's my sister's. I took a taxi to get here, I have no ride back to the city and no money to pay for another cab."
Gendry opened his mouth to insist he leave and found the apology die on his lips. He looked the girl up and down. She didn't appear to be much; a lot of skin and bone, mostly. There was a feral look in her eye, though, that he recognized all too well... he saw it every time he looked in the mirror, as well. From the clothes she wore and the authority and conviction with which she spoke, she didn't seem to be from a background that was anything like his. He'd developed an early gauge for people in the streets and the hardships they'd endured, and she wasn't landing herself very high on the list. Nevertheless, the look he saw in her suggested that she had a war inside of her too against what she was. Or who she was. It was easy for Gendry to admit that no one knew what that felt like more than he did. He couldn't help but sympathize with her.
The clock over his shoulder read five minutes past six now. If Mott had asked Gendry to close up, he would definitely not return that night, and probably not show up again until Monday morning, unless he decided to open a special shift Sunday afternoon. If he checked the girl's car out and mimicked Mott's handwriting, he might just not notice at all.
"What are you screwing your face up like that for?" the girl suddenly asked, startling him.
"What?"
She threw a hand out towards his face. "Your brow's all crinkled and you're pursing your lips. It looks like your head's about to explode."
Gendry frowned at her. "I'm just thinking, that's all."
"Thinking," the girl repeated, and he crossed her arms as she apparently tried her best not to laugh. "If it's that difficult for you, you'd best go get a pack of ice beforehand. Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."
He tossed his hammer down on the counter and pointed towards the door she'd entered a few moments before, already moving angrily towards the back. "There's the door. We open at seven o'clock on Monday morning. Hopefully you can find an alternative means of transport back to wherever the hell you came from."
"I'm sorry!" the girl blurted after him. He heard her rush around and reenter his field of vision, a more sober expression on her face. "I'm sorry. Really. Please, I really need to get the car. My sister is expecting it back by today."
"Sorry, no can do," Gendry announced, knocking a knuckle against his head. "Can't think about it right now or I'll hurt myself. Ask me next week."
It was the girl's turn to scowl. The expression looked suspiciously familiar to her face. "I already said I'm sorry, you don't have to be so stupid about it."
Gendry couldn't help but chuckle. "Do you think that saying that is helping your chances of changing my mind?"
"Well, if you weren't being such a bull-headed idiot about it—"
"I'm intrigued. You actually think this is helping you."
"Shut up, stupid!"
"Does this usually work on people for you?"
He couldn't help but smile to himself as the girl took a step forward and raised her arms as if to physically shove him backwards. At the last moment, she seemed to restrain herself, and curled her fists before finally dropping them to her sides. Gendry waited patiently for her to take a step backwards and shuffle between her feet as she stared at him with furious eyes. She was amusing, at least as much as she was a pain. Gendry decided it was worth staying an extra five minutes in the shop just to witness the spectacle of this little creature get wound up.
She took a deep breath, evidently to calm herself, but it came out mostly as a growl or groan of irritation. Nevertheless, she said, "I'm sorry. I'm having a bad day and a worse week."
"Are you?" Gendry replied. "Even so, what makes you think walking into an establishment and cursing out the only person there to help you will get you what you want?"
"Look." She raised her face, and her eyes met his. Gendry was stuck with an image of storm clouds brewing behind her sparking grey eyes. "I just want the car."
"I'm not supposed to let you take it," Gendry told her.
"Just this one time? It's not even like it's not ready or anything. Besides, if you don't let me take it, my sister will probably get charged for leaving it in the garage the whole weekend."
"That's probably the point," he said, grinning at her. When she glared, he shrugged again. "My boss' rules, not mine. I'd just as soon let you take it."
"I'll pay you twenty dollars," she offered, already fumbling in her pocket.
He held up his hand to stop her movement and shook his head. "No, I won't take that."
"You just said you needed all the money you could get," she protested, pulling a wad of crinkled bills from her shorts and holding out her hand to him. Before he could stop himself, he caught himself reaching for the money on the reflex of seeing green.
Just in time, he realized what he was doing and snatched his hand back. "No, I can't. That's not who I am." The girl's eyes darkened again, though more with upset this time than any anger in his direction. He was so startled to find her go from furious to crestfallen so quickly that he actually said, "Hey…"
She waited for him to continue, and cocked her head to the side when he stopped. "What?"
"Which one is it?" he asked, not quite believing what he was saying.
Her eyes brightened, and he decided it was a much more becoming look to her face than the scowl it had replaced, after all. "The yellow one. The one with the broken suspension."
Gendry glanced over his shoulder at the car in question, one he himself had finished with only a half hour earlier. He had already given in, he knew, a thought which didn't exactly please him; he was used to being immovable, whether facing little girl, fat old man, or screaming idiot.
"All right," he said grudgingly. "Just let me get the clipboard, so you can sign out. Then you can take it."
She didn't even thank him as he stalked into the back room and retrieved the dirty clipboard Mott kept his clients' sign-ins and sign-outs on. By the time he had returned to the shop she was already leaning against the yellow car with her arms crossed, staring at him funnily as he weaved his way through the mess and mass of car parts towards her.
"Sign here," he said, feeling unusually like he'd been defeated. He shoved the clipboard and pen into her hands and stepped back. He felt his muscles clench as he crossed his arms, and noticed with discomfort that she was still watching him. "What?"
The girl didn't jump, but she clearly returned from a deep thought of something. She scrawled an unintelligible mess on the line and shoved the board back into his hands with just as much venom. "Nothing. Thanks."
He shook his head at her. I want to play baseball, he whined in his head as she opened the doors to the car. Something white felt out of the door and started to roll away, but the girl didn't seem to notice.
"Hang on," he called to her as he traipsed after it a few paces. He hadn't seen what it was, but had seen where it had rolled, right into a mass of barrels that had been empty for years. He leaned against the first barrel and stooped over to reach into between them until his fingers closed on a familiarly-shaped sphere. It was so ironic he had to laugh aloud.
He tossed the baseball up in his hands as he pulled it out from between the barrels and walked back to the yellow car. It was the cleanest one he had ever seen, almost perfectly white, and it made him feel guilty just touching it. He offered it to the girl as he stepped back up to the door, where she had no leg inside of the vehicle already.
Her face turned surprised as she saw what he was holding, and then immediately softened as she reached for it. "Well, what d'you know? Sansa's a Stark, after all…"
Gendry couldn't explain it. As her fingers touched the ball he was holding, his eyes were drawn to hers and—whether it was the baseball or just the eye contact—he made the connection he'd been missing. Abruptly, it felt as though the storm behind her eyes had hit him with a lightning bolt.
"You're the one who was skulking behind the fence yesterday."
She started, as if she hadn't expected him to remember, and clearly realized she had given herself away. Quickly, she wrenched the baseball out of his hands and turned away. "I wasn't skulking."
"What do you call it, then?" Gendry demanded lightly, stepping forward to catch the door in his hand before she could slam it. The garage door was closed, so she couldn't escape prematurely, but he didn't want her getting any avenue to slip out of the discussion.
He remembered the event; it had been only yesterday. Tom, Anguy, and Lem had just clapped him on the back and started following the crowd back to their construction work when he had been seized abruptly by the notion that he was being watched, and turning just in time to catch the slim, lithe figure behind the fence watching him. Whoever she was slunk away almost immediately, clearly having realized she had just been made. Gendry had enough experience in the streets to realize that when such things happened you left before whoever it was had a chance to get closer, but he had also gotten a strange feeling that whoever she was—the weird watcher from beyond the fence—was someone he actually wouldn't have minded running into. Nevertheless, he had decided in a split second his gut feelings weren't to be trusted and had slipped back to Mott's before his boss could start screaming at him.
Now, as the girl whipped back around when he grabbed hold of her door, he was renewed with the strange feeling of association that had struck him the day before. Even if she was stabbing him a million times a second with fake needles, even though it was a strange coincidence for her to pop up in two odd places on two consecutive days.
"Let go," she snarled.
"Of course, m'lady," he said sarcastically, not budging in the slightest but to drop an exaggerated bow. "What were you doing there, yesterday? Are you following me?"
"No!" she snapped. "I was just walking around and I noticed a game going on and decided to watch for a bit."
"Uh-huh," Gendry said.
"It's the truth."
"Is it?"
"Fine. Don't believe me. Just let go of the fucking door so I can get out of here."
She's as bloody stubborn as me, he thought, raising his chin only to find her obstinately matching his level with venom. How can someone so small be such a giant pain in my ass?
He sighed, and released the door. "Fine, m'lady."
"Don't call me that!" she growled. She didn't climb into the car as he turned to leave, and he rubbed at his eyes tiredly.
"Seven hells, you are impossible," he groaned. He shook his head at her. "You want me to give you the car, you laugh at me, I give you the car, you yell at me, I hold open your door, you threaten me, I'm letting you leave, and you're still making a fuss."
She took another deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment before fixing them upon him anew. She made no further move to climb into the car. "I'm sorry. Who are you?"
He raised an eyebrow at her. "Quite a turnaround," he commented dryly, nevertheless wiping his grease-covered hand on his jeans before offering it to her. "Gendry Waters."
She took his hand without comment or disgust, something that actually made him crack a grin; he didn't know many other girls who would be willing to do so. Then again, he didn't know many girls, period. Her handshake was firmer than he'd expected and utterly uncompromising, as was the pride in her voice. "Arya Stark."
"Pleasure to meet you," he said, half-seriously. He leaned against her car, scrutinizing her closer. She sounded like she was older than high school, no matter how young she appeared or acted. Definitely not twenty, but more feisty than a stoned chihuahua. "Spy on people often?"
The stormy look was back. "I wasn't spying on you. I told you, I was just walking by and I happened to hear a baseball getting hit. When I investigated I decided to watch for a bit, that's all. You don't have to get all high and mighty about it."
"Who's getting high and mighty?"
"You are, stupid."
"That's the best insult you can come up with?" he replied, raising the other eyebrow at her so they were both finally raised. He raised his chin to challenge her. "So what did you stay back for? I know you were glaring at me at least a minute after everyone else left."
Arya Stark shrugged at him, raising and lowering one small shoulder without removing her eyes from him. "I was wondering who you were. You throw a nice fastball. I've never seen you play before, and you throw harder than anyone I've seen who wasn't professional."
No need to make fun of me, he thought wryly. He pursed his lips and shook his head. "I don't know about that. I'm fast for the streets, sure, but it's just the streets. Know something about baseball, do you?"
"Only everything," she said, rolling her eyes as if it should have been obvious to him. "My dad and brothers..." She paused, peering up at him through narrow eyes as if suddenly seeing him differently. The inspection made him self-conscious and uncomfortable and he was relieved when she sat down on the edge of the driver's seat, still sticking out of the car and looking at him. "Baseball's big in my family. The same in yours?"
He bristled. My family. What family? "No," he answered simply, half-turning away and glancing about the shop to hide his bitterness at the mention. "So, uh... you should be all ready to go. If it feels bad or the steering is jostling towards that side of the car, just tell your sister to bring it back. Have her mention she's your sister and I'll fix it for free as long as she doesn't have you pick it up."
"Hey!"
He grinned at her and turned away so he could hit the garage door opener on the nearest wall. The bright light of the sun, still high in the sky on a late March afternoon, spilled into the shop gradually. The yellow car hummed alive pleasantly, filling the shop with the aroma of burnt fuels that it so often held.
She rolled forward up to the door and rolled down the window, leaning out to glare at him. "I'll break it myself, just so I come back and get you fired."
He raised a hand in a little wave. "Happy trails, Arya Stark. Quick, or I'll shut the door on your head."
"Stupid mechanic," she hissed, and then pulled out of the garage before he could reply. He jammed the button to the door shut behind her and stood against the wall for a minute. Remaining that way for several moments, he tried to decide if that interesting conversation had been positive or negative.
"Arya Stark," he repeated. That name seems like it should mean something...
And then he caught his face bunching up and his lips pursing as he started to critically think. He swore and trudged off towards the back of the shop again angrily. Definitely negative.
He locked up the shop, turning off all the lights and bolting all the doors before stealing out the back and retrieving his bicycle from the scrap heap. He lamented his Friday evening as he sullenly rode home, none the better and slightly more irritated for his day of work. By the time he got home he was quite hungry and just as penniless, and just managed to avoid being the target of the yells coming from his landlord's side of the apartment complex.
He avoided staring at himself in the mirror as he showered, relieving himself of the day's grime and sweat. After he had dried off and pulled on a clean shirt he filled his only pot with water and set it to boil on the meek excuse for a stoves he had; a dinner of generic, cheap noodles would have to suffice, but he'd survived off of far less before. Striding to his freezer, he pulled the giant pitcher of water he'd set inside to freeze the previous evening, and pulled a knife out of his bedside cabinet to chip giant chunks of the ice into his sole bucket, which he then filled partially with water.
Setting the radio to broadcast the Monarchs as they took on the Direwolves that very night, he cradled his bucket on his bed and buried his elbow in the ice, hissing at the frosty feeling and then sighing in gratification as the throbbing began to recede beneath the dulling chill. Despite not pitching that day, or throwing in any capacity whatsoever, the ache had not much vanished during the workday.
I need a new job, he decided, leaning against the wall and closing his eyes as the broadcaster transported him twenty blocks downtown. And a new arm. This one's killing me.
He didn't have much else to do as soon as he'd finished eating. He replaced the majority of the ice that had melted and set the bucket on the floor, lying on the corner of his bed to keep his elbow submerged as the game on the radio progressed. The Monarchs were casually dismantling their opponents of Winterfell, the far outmatched team.
He was surveying the short stack of books that were lying in the corner of the room—relics of his old high school days and dumpsters that represented one of the only things except for baseball that could occupy his mind for more than a few moments—when something very strange happened.
Someone knocked on his door.
Did that really happen? He cocked his head to the side at the sound and sat up slowly. He was never visited… by anybody. Except for his landlord, who would have pounded away at and thoroughly knocked down his door by then. He didn't have many friends; the few he did didn't know where he lived, and contrary to his body's desires he always slept alone.
The knocking continued, and he slid off the bed, pulling his dripping arm from the bucket as he stepped hesitantly towards the door. He had no peephole, only a chain on the door, which he'd slid into place as he'd come in earlier. Cautiously, he pulled back the dead bolt and undid the lock on the door, leaving the chain in its place as he cracked the door and peeked his head to see who was at the threshold.
Arya Stark stood in the hall outside his room, glancing curiously in as he opened the door.
"Arya?" he said incredulously.
"Hi," she said flatly, as if he should have been expecting her. "Can we come in?"
"Why are you here? How did you find me? You are following me..." He stopped as he realized what she had said. We. He tried to glance over her shoulder to see who was with her, his worst irrational fears popping to mind, but he could not see past her for how small the gap in his door was.
"I'm not," she said. "Honest. Can you let us in?"
He probably should have been wiser and demanded to see who was with her, but he was still slightly dazed; this was the first time he had ever been visited in his apartment by anyone, an experience he imagined would leave anyone flustered. Because of this, and an unusually irregular urge to trust this strange and potentially creepy girl, he glanced about his meager apartment and decided he could care less about a visitor's opinions of his living. Quickly, he unchained the door and opened it wide while planting himself firmly in the way of his visitors.
Arya stood in the hallway, still dressed as she'd been in the shop, though wearing an eager and much more amiable face. Her small and unimposing frame was overshadowed by the much larger man behind her. He stood a few paces behind her, a few inches shorter than Gendry but similarly muscled if a few more decades on in age. His hair was brown-gray with age and fell in messy strands to his neck. His beard was a steely black and gave him a grizzled, wintery look. The eyes, a startling feature on the man's otherwise unremarkable face, were a sharp grey that perfectly matched the shade of Arya's. They were doubtlessly related, but it was something else entirely that caused Gendry to start.
He recognized the man.
"May we come in?" Arya prompted for the third time, a hint of irritation beginning to creep into her voice.
Gendry's eyes flashed down to hers, and though tempted to step back both to acquiesce and to put some space between them, he held his ground. "What's this about?"
"I want you to meet somebody," she answered. "He might be able to help you."
He eyed the man standing stoically, returning the glare with slight confusion and suspicion, as if even he had even less of an idea why he was there than Gendry did. The young mechanic cleared his throat uneasily. "That's Ned Stark." He realized how that sounded and looked, and he tried to straighten up and remedy the situation. "You're Ned Stark. I mean... I recognize you, sir."
The older man didn't quite smile, but he looked perhaps a little less cold and inhospitable than before. "Yes, I am Ned Stark. And I'm not surprised, though I'm glad you're much more subdued than others who recognize me."
Gendry felt as though he had been hit by a truck. He had heard epic stories of Ned Stark's reign of terror from the mound in major league baseball, gone to great lengths to catch a glimpse of some of the footage. Fifteen seasons with the Direwolves of Winterfell, over two hundred wins and four consecutive strikeout titles. Never had he expected the pitching legend to suddenly show up on his doorstep, escorted by a girl he'd met... in his shop...
Stark. Arya. Sansa. You are an idiot.
He glanced, bewildered, at Arya, shaking his head. Sure, he'd never made it a point to discover precisely whether or not Ned Stark had a family or daughters, but this was still something he should have seen coming. Especially in King's Landing, such a big baseball citys. "I never figured... I mean to say, I didn't make the connection. I would never have thought..." Her face was somewhere between amused and irritated, and he gave up. "How did you find me?"
"It's called a phonebook," she deadpanned. "May we please come in?"
"I'm in a phonebook," Gendry said, dazedly stepping aside. He glanced at the decades-old phone that hung on his wall in the corner, a device he hadn't once used in two years of living in the apartment. "I didn't even know that thing worked."
Arya pushed past him into the small area of his apartment. As she glanced around it snobbishly, Gendry sized up Ned Stark, who stepped up onto the threshold his daughter had suddenly vacated with his hands in his pockets. He was much more polite, inconspicuously sizing up Gendry in the same way. Compared with Gendry's comfortable, carefree garb Stark wore a fine suit, presumably tailored, with a dark blue tie as deep as ice. The dark man made him feel woefully undressed in the (relative) comfort of his own apartment.
The pause of the moment, coupled with his personal life being scrutinized a strange girl he'd only just met—who happened to be the daughter of one of his greatest idols, who was also in his apartment—made him uneasy. "What's this about?"
"My daughter tells me you're a ballplayer," Stark commented wryly from the doorstep.
Arya turned around, and Gendry pointedly glared at her in shock. "I wouldn't quite say that, sir. I like to play the game, but I've never... I've never played in a real environment before. Not really."
Ned Stark raised an eyebrow and turned to face his daughter. "You haven't? Arya seemed very intent to drag me down here to meet you. Said she had discovered a pitching prospect that I couldn't pass on, and I had to do it tonight. Dragged me away from my team's game to do it."
The 'Wolves. Of course, Ned Stark had purchased the Winterfell Direwolves about fifteen years before, a short time after he retired from the league himself. That would explain why he was in King's Landing; the Monarchs and Direwolves were locked in their last exhibition matchup before the regular season began, and if Gendry could properly remember the few papers he got his hands on, Ned Stark's all-star son Robb was currently the Direwolves' catcher.
"Oh, don't be dramatic," Arya said to her father, turning around to face him and Gendry. "They're getting crushed, and no one important is even playing, it's all just people who are going to start the season at double and triple-A. I was serious, too. You're not going to want to miss this."
"Miss what?" Gendry exclaimed.
She turned to face him, narrowing her eyes. "You pitching, stupid." Her eyes traveled down to his arm, which was still dripping, and then found the bucket of ice water next to his bed. "Did you throw today already?"
"No," he replied, shrugging and flapping his arm in front of his body. "My arm just hurts. I do this every night, it's the only way I could possibly keep throwing."
"Arya insists I need to see you pitch," Ned Stark said. "Told me she watched you play the other day and couldn't believe she'd never heard of you before. She doesn't say that about just anybody, and she's usually smart enough to recognize talent when she sees it. Even if no one else does."
Gendry blinked, completely overwhelmed. Three minutes ago he had been calmly, quietly letting himself become frozen on his bed, and now he was being interrogated by a girl he'd just met and her father about something he had never been in a real pressuring setting. "Sir, not to be rude, but... I don't know what you're expecting."
Ned Stark surveyed him for a moment, making him even more self-conscious than he already was, and then crossed his arms inquisitively as opposed to defensively. "Well, Gendry, if I may call you that, I expect to see what my daughter's dragged me away from a baseball game to see. Whatever happens, I don't think I'll be disappointed, so why don't you come show me what you've got. If your arm isn't killing you, that is."
"You want me to pitch. Right now." Both Starks nodded at him and he realized he wasn't dreaming these words. "I don't have a catcher, sir."
"I can catch you," Arya volunteered, and Gendry had to bite back his scoff. Luckily, he did, for Ned Stark didn't so much as react to his daughter's outrageous offer, indicating it was less than outrageous, after all.
"I..." What's going on?
Gendry stopped. He wasn't certain about anything anymore. He was somewhat used to situations like these, where he had only a portion of information to go upon and had to adapt quickly to his surroundings. He'd experienced it before, when he was struggling to find work and near to starving in the streets, or having to fend mostly for himself in a home of dozens of boys and girls where his size was taken to mean he could take care of himself. In similar times, he usually resorted to trusting in his instincts to tell him what to do, and that was exactly what he settled into then, with Arya and Ned Stark waiting for his reply.
He wasn't sure why, and he wasn't sure what could come of it, but his instincts led him to pause for a second before stepping past Arya and dragging his worn mitt from beneath the corner of his bed. "What the hell. I guess I'll give you what I've got."
Ned Stark nodded and Arya actually beamed. Without waiting for another invitation the younger Stark essentially skipped out of his apartment, her father following after shooting him a brief, appraising look. Gendry took a deep breath once both their backs were turned before grabbing his keys, slipping his shoes back on and locking the door behind him.
The two Starks looked woefully out of place in his apartment building. He half-hoped his landlord would rush out and demand what the commotion was just for the opportunity to see him face down the icy man stalking through his hallways in a suit, as coldly composed as a messenger from any one of the Seven Hells, though perhaps, Gendry suspected, a bit more dangerous. Arya was little better, having far more energy as she descended the stair to the main entrance than any rightful occupant of such a dreary place ought to have.
When they emerged into the quickly waning sun, the car parked on the curb outside the apartment complex caught Gendry's eye, and he halted in shock. It was black, sleek, fast, and tinted, possibly with an electric seal and/or the ability to become invisible while firing missiles from its wheel hubs. All joking aside, it was easily worth more than he had made or spent in his entire life, and Arya walked right up to it as though she'd seen prettier ornamental pots.
He stepped past his bike, eyeing it with sudden embarrassed in distaste, and joined the two Starks on the curb as Arya retrieved a well-colored baseball glove from the back seat of the god vehicle, again making him glance unhappily down at his shabby approximation of the same item. She underhanded him a baseball, which he caught reflexively and began to twiddle between his fingers anxiously.
"Where?" he asked the Starks.
Ned gestured to the street, empty but for his fantastic car and clear in either direction as far as the eye could see, on a bleak Friday night in King's Landing. "Might as well be right here. Go on, Arya. Let's see what Gendry has."
Arya smirked at him with a playful glint behind her stormy eyes and then jogged a short distance around the street, halting at a good approximation of the distance between a mound and home plate. She turned around, immediately got into a crouch, and patted her glove a few times before displaying a target around her knees.
Gendry took a breath, wondering what in the world he was doing, moving to set up as though he were pitching from the stretch. Meekly, he warbled, "I'm not even warmed up, you know."
"Come on," Arya prompted smarmily, smacking her glove while Ned glanced at him warily from the corner of the older man's eye.
The young mechanic swallowed, picked a crack in the blacktop to use as his rubber, and set his feet in their proper position before losing his nerve again. "Sir, I really don't… I don't want to hurt anybody."
"Come on, stupid!" Arya shouted again, this time angrily, her tone streaked with vicious anger. "Throw the ball! Don't be such a girl!"
Ned glanced over at Gendry at the same time Gendry glanced over to the senior Stark for support, and was dismayed when he found the man grinning with amusement. Arya's father offered her only a small shrug and a docile wave in Arya's direction, indicating for him to start.
Sighing, Gendry toed his line again and clutched the baseball by its rough, used surface in his glove. Pulling it out and without looking at it, he rolled it deftly until his index and middle fingers wrapped tightly into a groove by the lace, eyeing his target in Arya's glove twenty yards away. He came set as loosely as he could, willing the crinkle he knew his face was showing away and begging his mind to stop. He knew that once he let go of the baseball in front of Ned Stark, one way or another, he would never be able to look at the beloved game the same way ever again.
Time stilled for a second. It always did.
Ah, fuck it.
Gendry reared back and launched the white projectile at the young woman crouching twenty yards away, watching it in slow-motion as it careened forward majestically before burying itself in the mitt's webbing. Arya never moved the glove.
He took a small breath as he stood back up, watching as Arya turned the glove over and glanced inside, as if to make sure the baseball was actually there. Once upright, he turned to the side, and was surprised to find Ned Stark's mouth hanging wide open, his face satisfyingly open in a moment of unrestrained shock.
Whether it was a good thing or a bad thing, Ned Stark recovered quickly, and turned away from his daughter to Gendry, eyes flashing between the mechanic's arm and his face in diffident disbelief. Arya tossed the ball back to Gendry with a mildly surprised expression of her own. By that time, the Stark man's arms had crossed across his chest and he was shifting between his feet curiously.
"Can you throw that again?" Ned Stark asked quietly. Gendry simply nodded, which Ned Stark returned. "Do it."
Gendry puffed out his cheeks and juggled the ball for a moment in his right hand. Calmly, he dragged his left foot across the blacktop, coming set. Using the same form, the same arm arc, the same released point, he hurled the ball at his maximum velocity towards Arya, this time forcing her to move the glove about two inches to the left before the ball smote its deep pocket.
Her father looked no less impressed as Gendry turned to face him once again. He stood still as ice for several moments in a disbelieving stance, and then shifted from one foot to the other as he frowned thoughtfully. "You have a breaking ball?"
Without waiting to be prompted, Gendry gestured to Arya that his slider was coming. He came set the same as before, lifted his leg and strode the same length, brought his arm over at the same angle... at the last possible second his wrist slipped, throwing his two-finger grip off the ball in a downward-motion as he released it. The side spin imparted took most of the sixty-plus feet to catch the air. Just as it looked like it would sail over Arya's head, it dropped as if it had been batted downward by a celestial hand, arcing sharply to the left. His catcher was only barely able to snag it, two inches above and inside her right knee. A dead strike.
"Gods," he heard Ned Stark whisper to the side, and wondered if he was doing something wrong. He turned to find the older man stalking back to his car, and was afraid he had irrationally offended the man in some way.
Instead of leaping into the driver's seat and speeding away—an action he probably wouldn't have actually done, considering Arya hadn't moved—Ned Stark walked around the vehicle to the trunk, popping it open and meddling with something beyond Gendry's sight. He thought he heard a zipper, and then some more fuddling, and then the man reemerged wielding an apparatus Gendry had only ever seen in possession of a police officer.
Ned Stark fiddled with the speed gun as he walked back to where he had originally been standing, slightly off to the side and behind Gendry. Once it had apparently turned on, he lifted it and pointed it towards where his daughter still lay in her crouch, a look of unexpected delight on her face. "Can you try your fastball one more time?"
Gendry shrugged and obliged him. It hit Arya in the mitt again.
Her father swore and slapped the gun, staring at the screen in clear bewilderment. Whatever it was obviously didn't change, and he glanced up at Gendry once before averting his eyes. Gendry watched uneasily as he slowly made his way back to the car. He paused only to show Arya whatever speed his pitch had been. It was surprisingly satisfying to watch her face warp in astonishment. Nevertheless, as Ned Stark re-stashed the speed gun in his trunk and came back around the car with Arya, Gendry kind of felt as though he was being surrounded for the kill.
"Where did you say you played in college?" Ned Stark asked him.
"I didn't," Gendry replied.
Ned smiled at him. "I know. That was a roundabout way of asking you nicely where you played in college."
"I mean, I didn't play in college." Gendry watched their faces mix from curious to uncertain to disbelieving. He shrugged for the millionth time that unconventional day and continued, "I didn't even go to college. Grades weren't good enough. Not enough money."
Daughter and Father exchanged a glance, in which Arya seemed to sway her father to continue. "Oh. Well, where did you play in high school? I'm really surprised I've never heard your name before, or that you were never looked at by scouts."
"I didn't play in high school, either," Gendry said, his own face screwing up suspiciously. "Same reasons. Why would scouts want to look at me?"
Arya glared at him incredulously while Ned Stark's face twisted into an even deeper scowl. "You're telling me... you didn't play in high school or college? At all? Never?"
Gendry shook his head. "No. Why does that surprise you so much?"
"You just threw a 99 mile per hour fastball," Arya blurted.
All three of them blinked, looking at one another. Gendry decided to say something intelligent, which instead came out as, "What?"
Her father was nodding, crossing his arms again as he surveyed the young mechanic. "She's not lying. Unless the damn gun is broke, which I'm sure it's not. Your breaking ball couldn't have been any lower than 90, either, which is freaking fast for a slider, too."
Gendry listened to the words, struggling to put concrete meaning in his mind to things he couldn't so readily accept. 99 MPH? I can't possibly throw that fast... Most major leaguers can't throw it that fast... almost no one can... "I don't believe that."
"It's the truth," Arya insisted, glaring at him. "You threw that fast. I told you that you threw hard. You didn't believe me."
"I know I throw hard!" Gendry retorted, dancing on two feet in his startled excitement. "I just... never imagined it would be that fast. I've never thrown—I've never played anywhere except in the streets before."
"I find that hard to believe, but I guess it is so," Ned Stark said. He spent a few moments continuing his bewildered stare at Gendry, and then shook his head, not unkindly, while glancing at a very expensive watch on his hand. "Nowhere but the streets."
"I had trouble learning in school," he replied. "Couldn't concentrate. I wasn't dumb but I couldn't get good enough grades to play sports, so they wouldn't let me on the team, obviously."
The retired legend seemed to enter a deep state of thought for a moment and, only after an eternity of waiting for Gendry to hear what was coming next, seemed to reach a conclusion. "Gendry, you know where the Monarchs play?"
"The Dragonpit, sure," Gendry replied. He had never been inside, and couldn't figure out for the life of him why they had given it its name, but it had always stood on the edge of his vision, like a dream beyond his grasp. "What about it?"
"Tomorrow's Saturday. Can you meet me at the front gate, the main gate, at seven o'clock in the morning?"
Gendry glanced between the two Starks. "Why?"
Arya rolled her eyes. Ned merely grinned. "I want you to show the manager of the Direwolves what you can do. I want to give you a shot to pitch professionally."
He was pretty sure his heart stopped beating. Every dream, every desire, every wish that he had ever suppressed behind a conviction that knew his fantasies were irrelevant and futile suddenly rushed to the surface with a vengeance. He searched Ned Stark's face for any sign of mockery or ruse but didn't find any. Despite the fact that he didn't know the man, he felt as though he would not lie about something so monumental, as well.
"You're serious?" he asked breathlessly.
"Yes," Ned answered. "I would do it right now, in fact, except that the game is probably just getting over now and Luwen won't want to deal with anything for at least the rest of the time after the pounding he's being given. We actually have to run, Arya, I told him we'd be back to speak at the end of the game. The team's flying out tomorrow afternoon back to Winterfell, so it'll have to be bright and early."
"You'll make it, won't you?" Arya asked him, her eyes informing him it would be very foolish of him not to.
Gendry rubbed the back of his neck uneasily. "I guess... Yeah, I can me at the Dragonpit at seven o'clock..."
"Great!" she exclaimed, and pulled a phone from her pocket. "What's your number? In case you get lost."
"I won't get lost," he retorted irritably, pulling his hands from his neck and face and sticking the one that wasn't still holding his glove into his pocket. "I don't have a number to give you, anyway. I can't afford a cell phone."
Arya opened her mouth, perhaps to say something rude, then appeared to think better of it and stuck her phone back into her pocket with a relatively forlorn expression. Ned Stark glanced at his watch again and then stuck out his hand for Gendry to shake. "Well, we have to run. Ice that arm, you're going to need it in the morning. Really good meeting you, Gendry."
"Yeah," Gendry replied, half in a daze, half concentrating on the throbbing ache returning to his elbow to keep himself grounded to reality. "You, too, sir."
Ned Stark quickly walked to the driver's seat of his car and slipped inside, leaving Arya and Gendry standing alone in the street awkwardly. Arya held the mitt in one arm, holding that wrist with her other hand and biting her lip as she stared at him.
"What?" he prompted.
"Nothing. I was right, you know. You're welcome."
Gendry rolled his eyes and pointed at the car. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
She stuck her tongue out at him and walked around the other side of the car to the passenger door. "See you in the morning. Don't be late."
"Don't be late," he repeated incredulously to himself, watching as the car started and drove up the street, out of the slummy area it looked so out of place in. He imagined Arya's smug face, and squeezed his glove in both hands in irritation. "Who does she think I am?"
He didn't know. Nor did he know who he thought she was. Certainly someone who could get under his skin, and certainly someone he could very much enjoy irking. Maybe even someone who he could wind up being very good friends with. Her life was baseball, it seemed, just as much as it was his.
As the sleek car disappeared out of sight, he found himself laughing at his foolishness. Yeah, you being friends with a girl like that. That'll be the day.